


Chapter 9.5: Sworn Through Swords

by Synchron



Series: The Devil's Pact [3]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Flashbacks, Gen, general destruction of fortuna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22360159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synchron/pseuds/Synchron
Summary: Fortuna has been shaken right down to its very core, but instead of coming together, its citizens are scattering, fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. There is debris that is still burning even now, citizens still buried under concrete and glass and corpses both human and demon, and countless more still remain unaccounted for, yet like their faux religion, people are turning their backs on their own. And just like their faux religion, feeling no remorse about it. That's just the kind of city Fortuna is.You know, because you are one of these people.
Series: The Devil's Pact [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521224
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56





	Chapter 9.5: Sworn Through Swords

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello everyone, this chapter is just a mini little one shot to flesh out a certain moment in reader's past!! It's something I've had brewing in my mind for a while now, I admit. It wasn't necessary to add into the main fic itself, but I'm leaving it here as supplementary material for those who might be interested in learning a little more about Reader's character and circumstances!! It isn't the most glamorous, or even kind backstory, to Reader _or_ Nero, but given his already established past, and the fact that Reader herself is from Fortuna, I wanted to try for something a little different. Not radically different, mind, but it paves the way for her character arc a bit smoother, I think.
> 
> Or I could be dead wrong about this sdfhsdlkf like I said in chapter 9, I'm actually pretty nervous about this approach I'm taking. Nevertheless, I hope it's something you'll like. 😔💖

It's been four days since demons swarmed the city in their hordes, with numbers vast enough to blot out the very sunlight and blanket Fortuna in shadow. Four days since the banality of your simple, if not boring lifestyle crumbled to dust. Four days since you began hating yourself.   
  
Yet it feels like Fortuna never really settled down, clamouring to provide relief and aid to the many who required it. The grand theater, once the setting of all sermons performed by Sanctus himself, now serves as a shelter to those who've lost their homes. The only school left standing on the island has fallen into a similar routine, crowded with the injured and volunteer medical staff. Although in the end, that's all they are; mere volunteers. The one hospital on the island suffered major losses in the attack, and both supplies and doctors are few and far between.   
  
You've seen demon attacks before, and you know why they happen. But what occurred was not some mere coincidence or the result of a natural tear in the fabric of time and space. The scale of it was far too large for that, because it wasn't a measly lone Faust, or a minor troupe of Assaults. Were that the case, perhaps you wouldn't be so wracked with guilt and shame. No, what befell Fortuna was nothing short of an invasion. One premeditated and organised by the very Order you'd pledged yourself to. Though perhaps 'pledged' is too strong a word for your affiliation. As a citizen borne of Fortuna, becoming a member was simply expected of you, and given that there was nothing else to do or even achieve in that drab city, you'd agreed with an unenthused shrug. Just like that, on nothing but a whim and a mumbled oath you only memorised because you  _ had _ to, you took up your Caliburn for the first time.   
  
Ah… what a simple life it was back then.   
  
The first night after the attack, you'd collapsed on a tiny little cot in the theater, the blankets light but scratchy, uncomfortable, and stale of smell. But you still fell asleep the moment your head hit the pillow out of sheer exhaustion, still clutching your sword to your body like a lifeline. The commotion around you, the soft sobs of the mourning, the gently whispered lies that everything was going to be okay… all of it blended together into a still and dreamless sleep.   
  
The next day is when you started to feel sick. Not  _ ill _ , per se. Simply unwell. Queasy. The smell of disinfectant hung heavy in the air, but even the dense layer of it could not mask the stench of the funeral pyres just beyond the city. Corpses never smell good by default, but it's the smell of burning flesh that you will never be able to forget, and the bland stew that was prepared in large batches, doled out to survivors and volunteers alike did little to ease the nausea. The seething guilt. The white hot shame. You overheard whispers of other survivors, speaking of the Order and how they were responsible for what had befallen Fortuna. You heard the malice in their voices, and fearing their scorn, you carefully tucked your Caliburn underneath your cot and out of sight. The bowl of stew in your hands suddenly had a taste. Bile.   
  
By the third day, you heard of people leaving Fortuna by the boatful, abandoning their destroyed homes to try to salvage a life for themselves elsewhere. It didn't seem a bad idea. Anywhere would be better than here… And anything would be better than your days spent in idleness - thinking too many things, feeling too tired to sleep, wanting to cry but being unable to.   
  
On the fourth day after the demonic flood that washed over your hometown with fire and blood, bringing with it a living sculpture of a false god that thundered and shattered windows with its mere presence, you decide you never wanted to see this island again. Nor the colour white, nor the crimson of that sigil, and least of all the image of that statue with its curved horns and placid expression. You didn't have many belongings left in your name - just the clothes on your back, and a few spares donated by the more fortunate - but you gathered up what you had and vacated the theater. Caliburn lay abandoned under your cot.   
  
You now stand at the only port on the island where a ferry awaits. The last one for the week. Unsurprisingly, the port is busy, reminiscent of days gone by whenever another cargo ship bearing goods and supplies came around. But this bustle is distinctly different, more sombre, where everybody has deep, dark circles under their eyes as they board the ferry for the mainland. Fortuna has been shaken right down to its very core, but instead of coming together, its citizens are scattering, fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. There is debris that is  _ still _ burning even now, citizens  _ still _ buried under concrete and glass and corpses both human and demon, and countless more  _ still _ remain unaccounted for, yet like their faux religion, people are turning their backs on their own. And just like their faux religion, feeling no remorse about it. That's just the kind of city Fortuna is.   
  
You know, because you are one of these people.   
  
"Hey," a voice calls out to you, but over the din of everything else, you don't realise it's addressing you. But then the voice says your name, and finally you turn toward it, blinking in surprise. Someone knows you? Someone you know survived? The veil that hangs over you lifts somewhat.   
  
Until you see a head of pale silver, and immediately, your expression twists and contorts. You turn back towards the ocean, pretending you hadn't heard him. A rather foolish venture when it was made abundantly clear to the both of you that you had.   
  
"I think you forgot this." Nero prompts, shoving Caliburn into your hands. You stare down at the sheathed sword, feeling another tendril of guilt grip your insides and  _ squeeze _ . It isn't a physical sensation, you know this, and yet it somehow hurts nonetheless, applying a tangible weight upon you and making your head and shoulders dip. It doesn't exist beyond your own mind, and yet your sword weighs more than you can ever recall. It is heavy. It is scalding. It hurts.   
  
"I don't want it." You mutter, voice barely audible over the ocean and the sounds of people behind you.   
  
"Why?" Even the sound of Nero's voice makes you grind your teeth. That boy-ish, patronising tone… "It's yours, isn't it? Swore an oath over it and everything."   
  
"I don't need it." Comes your curt response. Though perhaps what you'd meant to say was that you don't deserve it. Why are you even humouring this boy? Why did he come to seek you out? To gloat? To laud your pitiful state over you now that the tables have turned? Well you'll show him. You've already discarded your Order uniform for good, burned all memorabilia inside a trashcan in a back alley, the only thing left to throw away now is your old ally, your comrade-in-arms.   
  
A precious partner that you let down and disappointed when the streets became chaotic with the knells of death.   
  
It catches the sunlight of the late afternoon, reflecting light painfully back into your eyes, almost as if it knows what fate is about to befall it. But squinting through the pain, you to take a step forward towards where the ocean churns below and drawing your arm back, heaving a pained, frustrated cry, you fling it into the ocean.   
  
Well, you try to, anyway.   
  
"Whoa, hey--!" A spectral hand swathed in a blue light snatches it right out of the air. You hate that light, that colour, that soft glow. It doesn't belong here--   
  
You blink.   
  
Here?   
  
In Fortuna?   
  
The Fortuna that's barely holding itself together with but a fraction of its former population? The Fortuna that the boy everybody hated saved because he was the only damn person in the city with the testicular fortitude to  _ do something _ ?   
  
It's  _ you _ who doesn't belong. Isn't that why you're leaving with your tail between your legs?   
  
The unwelcome realisation only makes the grudge you bear against the boy grow larger, heavier. Your head dips again and your eyes drop to the ground under the pressure.   
  
With a soft clink of steel and a rattling of leather tassels, Nero's phantom arm drops your sword into his waiting hands, where he readily catches it. He doesn't hand it off to you again. At least not yet.   
  
"Throwing a sword into the ocean probably counts as littering, you know. We gotta keep our island beautiful." He half turns on the spot to regard the smoking segments of Fortuna beyond the port, his tone taking on a bitter tenor. "...what's left of it anyway."   
  
It's some unholy mix of shame and hatred simmering in your gut that has you staring pointedly in the opposite direction, fixated on the last few stragglers boarding the ferry to the mainland. Somewhere nearby, a bell tolls, signalling the final call for boarding. You should probably get moving too - it won't wait forever.   
  
Nero gives you a few more seconds, seeing if you'll take the bait, if you'll give him something,  _ anything _ to work with. You don't. You just keep looking the other way, silent and unresponsive. You never used to be this way with him, always loud and pushy. Literally pushy. And always with a new derogatory name to call him; hellspawn; whoreson; bastard child. Yet those were all somehow far easier to deal with than the melancholy silence you're giving him now.   
  
When the bell stops ringing, he changes up his tactics, assaults your indifference from a different angle, because he has to keep trying. "All of the other Order knights are gone. You're the last of us now."   
  
This one gets you.   
  
The look that you flash him is fierce. Angry. Misdirected. "There's no ' _ us _ '." You spit. "You were Credo's little Wonder Boy who could do no wrong, and the rest of us were somehow always the aggressors. Always just making life hard for the outsider when we were keeping everybody  _ safe _ from him. Don't you  _ ever _ lump me together with you!"   
  
In a surprising silence, and with a tight expression of carefully controlled impatience on his face, Nero quietly accepts your surge of rage with a grace you, or even  _ he _ didn't know he had. He thought he was over all of this - the scorn, the hatred, being told these things and so much more to his face. He thought that by saving the city, that people would see… that things would be different…   
  
"Are you done?"   
  
"Go blow yourself, whoreson." The crude nickname your old troupe had given him flows freely from your lips, as it always did whenever he was brought up in conversation. It's so easy to hate someone from within the safety and familiarity of immunity and privilege. So easy to fall into bad habits. "What the fuck do you want from me?"   
  
He studies you for another moment, perhaps weighing out his options, deciding on the best course of action. But to you, his eyes are condescending and just one more thing on the extensive list of his unlikable traits.   
  
Although come to think of it, it's a list you never personally wrote - just one that you've simply always had and known it by heart through word of mouth from people you called comrades only because you all wore the same shade of white. All wore the same crest. Even though he had all of those too.   
  
"I want you to stay in Fortuna."   
  
The first crack in your visage appears as surprise, briefly overtaking your features before you scrunch your brows back together to default back to indignation. Another bad habit. " _ Bullshit _ ."   
  
"Did I fuckin' stutter?" Nero stops himself there with a curt and quiet irate sigh, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose to curb his ire - his quick temper is very often what got him in trouble with people he already knew were predisposed to not like him. He hadn't intended for any of his irritation to slip through, but old habits die hard, even Nero can agree with that sentiment. "Look. I don't need to tell you that shit's bad. And with so many people leaving, shit's only gonna get worse." He raises your sword in his hand, gestures at you with it. "Demons aren't gonna stop just because the hellgate under the city's been taken care of, and I'd sleep better at night knowing someone other than me can use one of these things."   
  
You don't buy it. "Fuck off. Don't try to claim the moral high ground here - you're just as responsible for what happened as the rest of them--"   
  
"Oh for fuck's sake..." Nero's arm drops back to his side, and though he is several years younger than you, any onlookers would only be able to presume the opposite is true based on this interaction alone. Nero's temperament is frustrated, but still measured, whereas you are volatile and instigative. You want to think that it isn't your fault, that lashing out at him is merely the natural order of things, but it's the knowledge that you're wrong that fuels your own anger. "You think I  _ want _ to be here, asking you to stay? I'm not doing it because I'm gonna miss you. I wouldn't miss your ass if you died. But I'm putting up with your stupid bullshit because everybody you're leaving behind in this city deserves a second chance. Even you."   
  
_ Even you.  
  
_ Even someone like you, who abandoned her duty and hid quivering among residents is deserving of redemption...   
  
That very notion stops you cold, but rather than a boiling agitation, what instead bubbles to the surface is a glossy, wet sheen over your eyes. Are you so angry that you've been reduced to tears, or did you overshoot on the emotions and land right amidst anguish by mistake? The two have always been so closely interchangeable...   
  
"That's why you're leaving, isn't it? Because you feel guilty? Because you didn't do enough? Because you want a fresh start?" He tilts his head at you, trying to edge his way back into your field of vision. "We don't become better people by running off and shucking all responsibility off on someone else. If you really want to start over, then stay and help me put all this shit back together."   
  
Your heart thuds painfully in your chest, bearing a sort of hurt that cuts deeper than the kiss of a blade, or the claws of a demon. The sting of it is more potent. Somehow more real.   
  
"...are you forgiving me?" You ask, not really understanding why, or what sort of response you're even expecting him to give you. Are you asking if he forgives you for the years of scorn? For your inaction four days ago? You don't know. You also don't know why you're afraid of how he'll answer.   
  
"No." His expression darkens, but it isn't resentful. Credo taught him better than that. "I don't think it's that simple," he mutters. Something in your chest drops for some reason, and Nero sees it, plain as day, carved right into your visage. Kyrie is who taught him empathy. "But I do know that if you get on that boat and leave, we'll never have the chance to find out."   
  
"An eye for an eye, and the world goes blind, but if you agree to watch my back, then I'll have yours too."   
  
When Nero holds your Caliburn out for you one last time, you blink your tears away and reach for it, your fingers closing around its sheath, swearing one last oath over your sword before you lift it from his hands. It feels lighter already, returning to a weight that feels familiar. Comfortable.   
  
When you lie in a real bed that night, under the roof of a small, but warm home with a belly full of Kyrie's 'famous' fish stew, you shed the very first tears you have since your childhood and cry yourself to sleep. It's the most rested you've felt in years.    


**Author's Note:**

> Writing this hurt. I hate being mean to Nero. 😭😭😭


End file.
